Courting a Songstress
by La Maddalena
Summary: In which we learn that love and desire are two very different things, and in which a vassal woos his lady. / Zhang Liao/Diao Chan drabble series as requested by Jianus. :D
1. What I've Tasted of Desire

Liao/Chan for Jianus, on a darker note than most. XP Standard disclaimers apply.

**Courting a Songstress  
****1: What I've Tasted of Desire**

_Which one of them will you go to tonight?_

It doesn't look like I'm watching, I know. But I am. I blame you. You always seem to tug on my attention no matter how far away you are, and I give it to you in full.

_Which one of them will you go to tonight?_

I hunt for a sign in the most obscure of places. When the music moves to your dance, and not the other way around, does it point you to either one? Is there a note in your song that this one recognizes is only for him?

_Which one of them will you go to tonight?_

Perhaps it does not matter. Whichever one it is, the story never changes. He will take you behind gossamer curtains with halfhearted sweet nothings that drift away come the dawn. And you will carefully, smilingly lie through painted lips that none in the world are more loved, more blessed than you.

But love and desire are two different things. Two very different things.


	2. Fallen Icons

**Courting a Songstress  
****2: Fallen Icons**

There are times when I don't believe in love. Sometimes, I feel that the most people get is lustful- lustful and afraid. When they find someone who fans the flames of that lust, and they become too afraid of what passes on the other side of drawn drapes and locked doors, they stay together and they call it love.

Such thoughts come most often in the stifling, sleepless hours before daybreak, ghosts of ghosts of ghosts long since departed, resurfacing from exhumed graves to remind me without mercy of the absence of you.

Then I begin to fear my own desire, the longing to possess you, despite the fact that I continuously tell myself that it is to treasure you, not hurt you as others have. My body aches to breathe your breath; if I allowed myself to, I would sink into your every word with the wild abandon of a man drowning. And I am afraid, though perhaps it is more shame than fear.

Yet, at other times, I can do nothing but believe in love. It is, after all, the one thing I can give you that they cannot.


	3. The Morning After

**The Courting of a Songstress**

**3: The Morning After…**

I can never look at you. Even if I forced my head up and stared straight into your face as you passed me on the way to your rooms, our shoulders grazing by a fraction of an inch, I'm not sure that I wouldn't avert my eyes, simply because humans are selfish beings. And I, no matter how I pray for courage and valor and strength enough for self-sacrifice, am no different.

Yet you remain the sunbeam, the ever-elusive wisp of color dancing out of the corners of my vision constrained in black and white. I'm not strong enough to turn a blind eye.

Some mornings I see you as you are after a night with our master- scarlet ribbons hanging knotted in the dark spill of your hair lying loose upon your shoulders, as your hands gather into the folds of your haphazardly secured robe the stains of dry blood and sin. The tear tracks lie not-quite-dry on your cheeks. I cannot even venture to ask what caused them.

_You do not deserve to have your wings pinioned so, angel._

On still other mornings, you call my name in a stream of giddy laughter, and I know you've just left _his_ company. Your lips are stained in crimson from his kisses; you sway as you walk as if the tiles beneath your feet are lightest air.

And this is, perhaps, merely a trick of the mind, but at such times, I almost think I can sense a bit of him in your perfume, in your voice, in your eyes wanton and desirous and turned away from me.

Humans are selfish beings. No matter what gods I pray to, no matter what spirits whose infinite power I despairingly invoke, I am no different.


	4. For Fear of Trust

**Courting a Songstress  
4: For Fear of Trust**

Midnight after midnight, you sit before the mirror, applying your makeup with more and more care. You know that you won't be able to do this forever. Somewhere deep in your heart of hearts, you know that your good sense, your humanity, your... _something_ cannot continue to allow it. But you've grown so accustomed to deceiving yourself that you can't help doing it anymore.

_Endure just a bit longer. Take it in stride just... just a little bit longer._

While you try to convince yourself that you're still doing fine, that no one sees, that no one knows, I am watching. I'm always watching; I commit everything to memory.

Evening falls and you dance on. Your hands and arms, your lips and eyes are as sure and lovely as ever, but even in that certainty something is screaming for protection, solace... for real love that can exist outside of desire.

Surely it can't be me you're calling for, Lady. It can't be me you want. But still, tonight I can almost imagine that they rest a heartbeat longer on my place this time, those eyes of yours.

_Wenyuan,_ you_ love me, don't you? Don't you love me?_


	5. Hope

**Courting a Songstress  
5: Hope**

_You don't have to stay anywhere forever._

I will do more than watch, this time. I will act, whether it means suffering or redemption for us both. And I blame you for this. You pull me to you like the center of the World, no matter how far away you are; I have become yours in full.

_You don't have to stay anywhere forever._

We will disappear as the city burns around us. Even without words, you marked me. Even if we have to retreat like shadows into the most obscure of places, I will save you.

We'll get away from here, you and I, so quickly that we're practically flying. Far, far away, to… somewhere. No matter where you are, there's always somewhere else to go.

_You don't have to stay anywhere forever._

And soon, love, soon... no one in the world will be more loved, more blessed than you.

**Fin**


End file.
